Your state’s pack. New issues arrive periodically on Mondays. Bookmark it. I built this for the Vermont T&E solo who knows Title 14 (Vermont’s own Decedents’ Estates and Trusts code, non-UPC) cold but still loses an afternoon a week hunting the current homestead number, the Green Mountain Care / Choices for Care slot posture, whether the latest Vermont Judiciary AI guidance changes how you scope an engagement, or whether a recent Vermont Supreme Court decision just moved the law on capacity, undue influence, or a trustee’s duties. What’s below is what mattered in Vermont lately — the week’s developments and the recent rulings from the bench.
For licensed attorneys. This pack is general legal information and professional commentary for practicing attorneys — it is not legal advice, does not apply to any specific matter, and creates no attorney-client relationship. Verify every authority against the cited primary source before relying on it with a client. Published by Mike Moss, a Utah-admitted attorney, as an AI-enablement information product; it is not an offer of legal services and is not a representation that the author is admitted to practice in your jurisdiction.
Three developments from the last seven days that I think actually matter to a Vermont T&E solo. Each one has a read that lands on your practice specifically — and each one comes with the citation so you can verify the detail yourself before you use it with a client.
The Vermont Judiciary Committee on Artificial Intelligence and the Courts released its First Annual Report (March 1, 2025), concluding that no amendments to the Rules of Professional Conduct or court rules are warranted, but issuing competence, confidentiality, communication, and fee guidance for lawyers using generative AI (and recommending the MCLE Board weigh a technology CLE credit). The VBA President’s designee sits on the committee.
This is judiciary guidance, not a bar ethics opinion — so don’t wait for a Vermont AI-specific RPC to tell you the rules apply. If you use generative AI to draft, your competence, confidentiality, and fee duties already attach today, and the committee read them onto AI use directly. Treat the report as the operative standard of care and paper your AI workflow against it.
Vermont Judiciary Committee on AI and the Courts, First Annual Report (Mar. 1, 2025) · VTCOURTS.GOV
27 V.S.A. § 101, as amended by 2023 Act No. 6, § 314 (eff. July 1, 2023), remains in force in the 2025-2026 statutes session with the homestead exemption set at $125,000.00 in value, exempt from attachment and execution.
A stale brochure or an older form library may still carry a pre-2023 number. The $125,000 figure is the one to cite in any Vermont creditor-exemption analysis or homestead-protection conversation right now — verify it against the legislature’s statutes page before you rely on it with a client.
27 V.S.A. § 101 · LEGISLATURE.VERMONT.GOV · eff. July 1, 2023
2026 Act 165 (H.937, signed June 18, 2026) carries three practitioner-level changes: Sec. 20 repeals the spendthrift-guardianship statutes (14 V.S.A. §§ 2681, 2684, 2685, 2687, 2690, 2691, 2692, 2693); Sec. 21 amends 14A V.S.A. § 505(c) so tenancy-by-the-entirety property conveyed to the spouses’ revocable or irrevocable trusts (and sale proceeds) stays immune from separate creditors as if still held TBE, applying to all trusts whenever created; and Secs. 26–27 amend 27 V.S.A. § 2 so joint-tenancy language in either the grant or habendum clause suffices — retroactively.
The TBE-to-trust immunity removes a long-standing hesitation about funding trusts with entireties property — revisit married clients whose homes stayed outside their trusts for creditor reasons. And the retroactive joint-tenancy fix quiets title questions in older deeds; check any pending survivorship-titling matter against the new construction rule.
2026 Vt. Acts & Resolves No. 165 (H.937), Secs. 20–21, 26–27, signed June 18, 2026 · legislature.vermont.gov
Decisions that bind a Vermont practitioner — Vermont’s appellate courts and the federal courts covering Vermont, including the U.S. Second Circuit — read for what actually changes how you draft, advise, and plan. Trusts and estates broadly, not Medicaid alone: wills and capacity, undue influence, fiduciary duty, trust construction, and estate recovery. One read, the holding, and the official cite.
This lane reads each new opinion from Vermont’s appellate courts and the federal courts covering Vermont (Second Circuit) before anything lands here, and reads-and-discards matters that aren’t trusts-and-estates — criminal, family, commercial/LLC fiduciary, tax, and cases where an estate or trust is only a party. For this period’s trailing window, no new verified trusts-and-estates or estate-recovery decision from those courts was identified in the sources reviewed.
Nothing to re-paper from the bench this period; controlling authority is unchanged. When the next verified T&E ruling issues, it lands here with the holding and the official cite.
Controlling authority unchanged · Vermont appellate courts · U.S. Second Circuit.
This week in Vermont for the T&E solo with Vermont Medicaid clients: the developments from the Vermont Bar Association and the Department of Vermont Health Access (Vermont Medicaid) that actually moved your practice this period — each one primary-source verified.
Bar and Medicaid changes land on different schedules and aren’t indexed by practice focus. Every item here was checked against its primary source, with the link, so you can verify before relying on it.